This Week On Twitter: Hashtag Etiquette Guide, Twitter’s Top Brands, Social Media Lead Generation

We’ve compiled our top ten Twitter stories of the week, which includes a complete guide to hashtag etiquette, a look at the top 20 most popular brands on Twitter, how to use social media to generate leads, the small business guide to social media mastery and SMS marketing facts and figures.

What is a hashtag? Well, on Twitter – and increasingly everywhere else – a hashtag is a word or phrase (with no spaces or punctuation) prefixed with the # symbol which gives users an easy way to communicate around a single theme. Example: #Twitter. The use of hashtags in social media originated back in August 2007, when designer Chris Messina asked his Twitter followers how they felt about using the pound sign (#) to group conversations on the micro-blogging platform, and thus became the first person to use the hashtag in its modern capacity.

@YouTube maintains its top spot as the premier brand on Twitter, with its more than 30 million followers placing it first ahead of @Instagram and even @Twitter itself. Yep. The official @Twitter account is only the third most-followed brand on its own social platform, and twelfth amongst all profiles, with a whisker over 21 million followers. However, combined with @twitter_es, the official Spanish Twitter profile, and its 12.6 million followers, it would rank first overall.

Social media has proven itself to be particularly effective at generating leads, which is good news for marketers, and any business or brand looking to use platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to attract and acquire new customers. It takes work, and it takes time, but the effort definitely pays off: 34 percent of marketers say that they have generated leads using Twitter, and 20 percent have gone on to close that deal.

Did you know that 26 percent of small business marketers dedicate at least one hour to social media marketing each day, and four in five (80 percent) plan to increase their use of social media this year? Small business has embraced platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, but why? Bottom line: used intelligently, social media can generate a significant return at a relatively low financial entry point. Moreover, it can be used in a variety of ways – 84 percent of SMBs use social media to reach customers, 42 percent use these channels for consumer support and 48 percent have generated business directly through Twitter.

Seeing as 96% of smartphone users text message, and 98% of text messages are read compared to 29% of tweets and 12% of Facebook posts, SMS marketing is naturally arich field of potential for digital marketers. SMS marketing company TextSprout published the following infographic to explore the successes of text marketing.

Why should your small business be on Twitter? How about this for a reason: one third of people on Twitter follow at least one brand. Still not convinced? What if I told you that studies have shown that the vast majority (67 percent) of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands that they follow on Twitter, that almost four in five (79 percent) recommend those same brands and 69 percent go to follow other brands based of the recommendations of others.

Did you know that studies have shown that more than one in three (34 percent) of marketers have generated leads through Twitter? Or that brands that have 1,000 or more Likes on their Facebook Page experience a traffic increase of 185 percent? What if I told you that 57 percent of companies have acquired a customer via their blog, or that one in five spend at least one hour each week engaging with marketing emails?

How do you sign off when you email? Well, if you’re like the 52 percent of professionals who use an email signature, you’ll include your name (70 percent), organisation (58 percent) and role (43 percent). But if you’re socially savvy you’ll also be sure to list your Twitter profile, too.

As new channels wage war for consumers’ attention, how much must digital marketers spend to break through the noise? This insight-packed infographic from Edo Interactive examines what $100,000 buys in the realms of TV, online video, mobile, direct marketing, and social media.

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